Principal Engineer - U.S. Remote

CYPHER LEARNING, INC.•Plano, TX

19h•Remote

About The Position

As Principal Engineer at CYPHER Learning, you will serve as a senior technical leader responsible for shaping the architecture, scalability, and long-term technical direction of our platform and products. You will lead the design of large-scale software systems, solve complex engineering challenges, and drive critical technical initiatives that strengthen reliability, security, and overall product performance. This role blends deep technical expertise, architectural judgment, and hands-on execution, ensuring technical decisions support business priorities while positioning CYPHER for long-term scale. You will partner closely with engineering, product, and cross-functional teams to guide technical direction, elevate engineering standards, and ensure our systems are built to adapt and grow with the business.

Requirements

Bachelor’s or master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field.
12+ years of software engineering experience, including deep technical leadership in complex product environments.
Proven experience architecting and scaling large distributed software systems in production environments.
Deep mastery of the primary framework (Rails), including internals, request lifecycle, ActiveRecord, middleware behavior, and where abstractions break at scale.
Strong full-stack proficiency across Ruby, Rails, JavaScript, and TypeScript.
Deep knowledge of cloud platforms, microservices architecture, and containerized environments, including Docker and Kubernetes.
Strong understanding of performance optimization, security, reliability, and maintainability in large-scale systems.
Exceptional problem-solving skills, with a track record of resolving complex technical challenges.
Demonstrated problem-solving capability in high-pressure situations, with the ability to investigate complex issues, adapt as priorities evolve, and drive effective technical resolution.
Strong attention to detail and organizational judgment, enabling effective prioritization across competing technical initiatives and dependencies.
Demonstrated ability to mentor senior engineers and influence technical direction across teams.
Excellent communication skills, with the ability to translate complex technical concepts into clear decisions and recommendations.
Product-minded and continuously curious, with a positive approach to learning, evolving technologies, and improving engineering outcomes.

Responsibilities

Provide technical leadership and strategic direction for large-scale software systems across CYPHER products.
Architect scalable, high-performance solutions aligned with long-term platform and business goals.
Solve complex technical challenges while ensuring reliability, security, and maintainability.
Establish and drive adoption of engineering standards, particularly in object-oriented design, testing, error handling, and query architecture.
Lead technical direction across teams through influence, shaping architectural decisions and engineering priorities.
Act as a force multiplier by coding at a high level while elevating team capability, quality, and output.
Mentor engineers at all levels and strengthen technical judgment across the organization.
Own 1–3 year technical direction, balancing platform health, scalability, and business value.
Evaluate build-versus-buy decisions, upgrades, and refactoring against technical and organizational constraints.
Identify and address platform-wide risks, including performance, security, and long-term maintainability.
Exercise strong technical judgment, including challenging decisions that may compromise long-term platform health.
Lead technical risk assessment for critical initiatives, providing clear estimates and tradeoffs that support effective planning.
Identify security gaps across application and infrastructure layers and prioritize remediation based on business and technical risk.
All other duties as assigned.